Facing up to what you've done
Most people get into relationships because they care for their partner. You may not intend hurting her, but you are. You may be feeling bad about how you’ve behaved – ashamed or guilty. It can be hard to face up to what you’ve done and how it’s affected her.
Why do people not take responsibility?
You might find yourself minimising things, pretending things aren’t that bad. When you do this you’re not taking responsibility for your actions
· It makes you feel better in the short term – if you're not responsible for your violence, then you don't have to feel bad about it
· It means that you don't have to do anything about it – if you’re not the one responsible for the violence, then there's no point looking at your own behaviour and attitudes or trying to change them
· It means you can't stop your violence – if you aren't responsible for it, then there’s nothing you can do to prevent it happening again
Blaming your partner
Have you ever found yourself saying:
"She makes me angry"
"She knows how to upset me, and she does it on purpose."
"She knows what I'm like."
"She never believes me."
"She nags me."
"She never listens to me."
"She’s abusive to me."
"I was trying to get away but she wouldn't let me leave."
"She gets hysterical."
"She’s a bad mother."
………….
It’s very tempting to try and deny responsibility for your behaviour by blaming your partner.
It’s easy to spot when you are blaming your partner:
· You want to talk about your partner's behaviour rather than about what you did
· You think, “If only she would do / not do something, I wouldn't be abusive”
· You feel that she needs to change in order for you to stop your violence
One of the first steps to ending abuse is to take full responsibility for your behaviour. You need recognise that it’s up to you what you do and how you behave, and to stop blaming your partner.
Next time you notice yourself blaming your partner try this:
Focus on your behaviour
Think about your partner’s feelings
Remind yourself that you are in control of what you do
Other things to blame
There are many other ways in which you can wriggle out of responsibility for your behaviour by saying that the reason for it was some kind of outside influence. For example:
· Work problems
· Money worries
· Children
· Things that happened to you when you were a kid
But none of these things cause you to be violent. Plenty of people experience these things without using violence. Think of a time that you’ve been stressed about work, or the kids or money when you weren’t abusive. These things don’t cause violence or abuse, but they may be something you argue about a lot and feel very linked to your abuse. See the section on warning signs to help you cope better with difficult arguments.
Drink/drugs
Alcohol and drugs don’t cause abuse, but they can make it worse. Many people use drugs and alcohol and never become violent or abusive. If you find that when you drink you become more abusive and you still do it – then you’re making a choice to be abusive. You are still responsible for your behaviour even if you are drunk or high.
Studies have also shown that when people are drunk or high their violence might become worse; that is more severe or frequent. When you are drunk or high it can be more difficult to stop yourself or limit your behaviour. These means you may cause more damage than you intended to your partner or family. Remember that :
· You may harm your partner or family more than you intended when you have been drinking alcohol or using drugs.
· Most people can choose how much and where to use drugs or alcohol. If you must use try cutting down gradually and drink or use away from your family. This may mean staying at a mates place after the pub or sobering up before going home.
· Being out of it is not an excuse. You are still responsible for your own behaviour, drunk, high or sober.
Momentary insanity
When you’re struggling to understand your violence, you may be tempted to believe that some strange force came over you and that you had what we might call momentary insanity. Have you ever said to yourself:
"I lost control."
"I just flipped."
"I saw red."
The human pressure cooker
Often you may want to say that such pressure had built up inside you that it was too late to make any other choice than to be violent. You might then say something like:
"I just exploded."
"I just blew."
But think about it. Most of the time your violence isn’t random, but specifically directed towards your partner. You don’t 'explode' randomly at passers-by when you feel bad, nor do you 'see red’ and hit just anyone who happens to be near.
If you believe that you’re overwhelmed by these strange forces that cause you to be violent, you won’t be able to stop. It’s one of the ways of avoiding understanding what your violence is about. In reality you could make different choices. If you’re honest with yourself you can probably see that you choose to control lots of things:
· Where to hit her
· How hard and how long for
· Who in front of
· When to stop
· What kind of violence – why a slap and not a punch? Why punch her, not strangle or stab her?
So, why does abuse happen?
Abuse doesn’t just happen. Rather than being about loss of control, most of the time it’s about you trying to be in control.
Think about the times when you abused your partner and if you are honest to yourself you will be able to work out what was really going on.
You might have wanted to:
· Stop her doing something
· Shut her up
· Punish her for doing something you didn’t like
· Punish her for hurting your feelings
· Show her who’s boss
· Win the argument
· Get your own way
This is what we mean when we say that domestic violence is about power and control. Whenever you’re trying to make her do something you’re trying to control her.
What stopped you killing her?
If you were really out of control anything could have happened. Actually you are much more in control than you might think.
Remember:
Anger is a symptom of abuse, not its cause
If you find that alcohol makes you more abusive then you have two choices to make: one to stop drinking and another one to stop being abusive. An abusive man who abuses alcohol does not have a problem; he has two problems
If you have other problems that you think contribute to your abuse – like stress, depression or bad health – you may have to deal with them separately. However, by dealing with those problems it doesn’t mean that you have dealt with your abuse
Your violence is a decision. It’s a choice that you have made from the many different options open to you and you can choose differently
If you want to move away from a relationship based on power and control to one based on intimacy and respect, you must stop blaming your partner for your behaviour
If you want to build a loving relationship, not one based on fear, you need to make changes
Just because you’ve been violent in the past doesn’t mean you have to be violent ever again.
Choose to stop!
Click here next: What can you do?